On Idolatry 14–24

But many have now persuaded themselves that it is pardonable if at times they do what the heathen do, lest the name be blasphemed. But the blasphemy we must avoid in every way is, I think, this: if one of us leads a heathen to just blasphemy by fraud, or injury, or insult, or other grounds for a worthy complaint, in which the name is deservedly attacked, so that the Lord too is deservedly angry. Otherwise, if it was said of every kind of blasphemy, “Because of you my name is blasphemed,” we all perish, since the whole circus, with its wicked votes, assails the name through no fault of ours. Let us give up being Christians, and it will not be blasphemed! No: let it be blasphemed, while we are keeping discipline and not departing from it, while we are approved and not rejected. O blasphemy akin to martyrdom, which bears witness that I am a Christian at the very moment it detests me for being one! The cursing of a discipline faithfully kept is a blessing on the name. “If I wished to please men,” he says, “I should not be the servant of Christ.” But the same apostle elsewhere bids us take care to please all: “Just as I,” he says, “please all in all things.” Was it, no doubt, by celebrating the Saturnalia and the Kalends of January that he pleased men? Or by modesty and patience? By gravity, by kindness, by integrity? Likewise when he says, “I have become all things to all men, that I might win all,” was he an idolater to idolaters? A heathen to heathens? Worldly to the worldly? And although he does not forbid us to associate with idolaters and adulterers and other criminals, saying, “Otherwise you would have to go out of the world,” he certainly does not slacken the reins of association so far that, since we must live and mix with sinners, we may also sin with them. Where there is the intercourse of life, which the apostle allows, there … sinning, which no one permits. It is lawful to live with the heathen; it is not lawful to die with them. Let us live with all; let us rejoice together in the fellowship of nature, not of superstition. We are equals in soul, not in discipline; joint owners of the world, not of error. But if we have no right of fellowship in such things with outsiders, how much more wicked is it to celebrate them among brethren! Who can endure or defend this? The Holy Spirit reproaches the Jews for their festival days: “Your sabbaths,” he says, “and new moons and ceremonies my soul hates.” By us, to whom the sabbaths are foreign, and the new moons, and the feasts once loved by God, the Saturnalia and the New Year's and Midwinter festivals and the Matronalia are frequented; gifts come and go, and New Year's presents; games resound, banquets clamor. O the better faithfulness of the nations to their own sect, which claims for itself no solemnity of the Christians! Neither the Lord's day nor Pentecost, even if they knew of them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear to seem Christians. We are not afraid of being declared heathen! If some indulgence must be granted to the flesh, you have, I will not say as many days of your own, but more. For to the heathen each festival day comes once a year; to you, every eighth day. Pick out each of the solemnities of the nations and set them out in order: they will not be able to fill up a Pentecost.

“But let your works shine,” he says. Yet now it is our shops and our doors that shine! You will now find more doors of the heathen without lamps and laurels than of Christians. What do you think about this kind of thing too? If it is an honor to an idol, then without doubt the honor of an idol is idolatry. If it is done for a man's sake, let us reflect that all idolatry is done for men's sake; let us reflect that all idolatry is the worship of men, since it is agreed even among their own people that the very gods of the nations were once men. So it makes no difference whether this superstition is offered to men of an earlier age or of this one. Idolatry has been condemned not because of the persons to whom it is offered, but because of those services themselves, which belong to demons. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.” It is well that he added, “and to God the things that are God's.” What, then, are Caesar's? Those, namely, about which the question was then being raised, whether the tax should be paid to Caesar or not. So the Lord asked for the coin to be shown him and inquired about the image, whose it was; and when he heard “Caesar's,” he said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's”: that is, the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is in man, to God; so that you render to Caesar your money, and to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God's, if all things are Caesar's? “So,” you say, “are lamps before the doors and laurel on the doorposts an honor to God?” Certainly not because they are an honor to God, but because they honor him who is honored with such services in God's place, as far as is manifest, not to speak of the hidden working that reaches the demons. For we ought to be certain, if any are unaware of it through ignorance of secular literature, that among the Romans there are gods even of doors: Cardea, named from hinges, Forculus from doors, Limentinus from the threshold, and Janus himself from the gate. And we certainly know that although the names are empty and invented, yet, when they are brought into superstition, they draw to themselves demons and every unclean spirit through the bond of consecration. Otherwise demons have no name of their own individually, but they find a name where they find a pledge. Among the Greeks too we read of Apollo Thyraeus and the Antelii, demons who preside over doors. Foreseeing these things from the beginning, the Holy Spirit foretold through the most ancient prophet Enoch that even doors would come into superstition. For we see other doors too worshipped in the baths. But if there are beings who are worshipped in doors, the lamps and laurels will belong to them. Whatever you do to a door, you will have done to an idol. At this point I also call to witness the authority of God, because it is not safe to keep back what has been shown to one person, surely for the sake of all. I know a brother who was severely rebuked in a vision that very night, because his slaves had garlanded his door when public rejoicings were suddenly announced. And yet he had not garlanded it himself, nor ordered it; for he had gone out beforehand and, on his return, had reprimanded the deed. So strictly are we judged by God in such matters, even in the discipline of our household. So, as regards the honors due to kings or emperors, we have a sufficient rule: that we ought to be in all obedience, according to the apostle's precept, subject to magistrates, princes, and powers, but within the limits of discipline, so long as we keep ourselves separate from idolatry. For this is why the example of the three brothers went before us, who, obedient in other respects to King Nebuchadnezzar, most steadfastly refused to honor his image, proving that whatever is exalted beyond the measure of human honor to the likeness of divine loftiness is idolatry. So too Daniel, submissive to Darius in everything else, remained in his service only so long as he was free of danger to his discipline. For rather than undergo that, he no more feared the king's lions than they had feared the king's fire. Let those, then, light lamps every day who have no light; let those fix to their doorposts laurels that will afterwards burn, over whom the fires hang; to them belong both the testimonies of darkness and the omens of punishments. You are the light of the world and a tree ever green. If you have renounced temples, do not make your door a temple. I have said too little: if you have renounced brothels, do not clothe your house with the look of a new brothel.

As for the duties of private and public solemnities, such as the assumption of the toga of manhood, betrothals, weddings, and name-givings, I would think there is no danger in observing them from the breath of idolatry that intrudes on them. For the causes for which the duty is performed must be considered. I think these are clean in themselves, because neither the garment of manhood, nor the ring, nor the marriage union derives from the honor of any idol. In short, I find no dress cursed by God except women's dress on a man: “Cursed,” he says, “is everyone who puts on women's clothes.” But the toga is manly even by its name. Nor does God forbid weddings to be celebrated any more than a name to be given. “But sacrifices are attached to these.” Let me be invited, provided the ground of the duty is not the sacrifice, and the performance of my service may be as much as they please. Would that we could not even see what it is sinful for us to do! But since the evil one has so surrounded the world with idolatry, it will be permitted to be present at some things which make us courteous to a man, not to an idol. Plainly, if invited to a priestly function and a sacrifice, I will not go, for that is an office proper to an idol; nor will I serve such things with advice, or money, or any other help. If I attend because I was invited for the sake of the sacrifice, I shall be a partaker in idolatry; if some other reason joins me to the one sacrificing, I shall be only a spectator of the sacrifice.

But what will believing slaves or freedmen do, and likewise officials in attendance on masters, patrons, or governors when they sacrifice? Well, if anyone hands wine to one who is sacrificing, nay, if he helps with any word necessary to the sacrifice, he will be counted a minister of idolatry. Mindful of this rule, we can also render service to magistrates and powers, after the example of the patriarchs and the other forefathers, who attended idolatrous kings up to the limit of idolatry. Hence a debate arose recently whether a servant of God may take up the administration of any rank or power, if he can keep himself untouched by every form of idolatry, whether by some favor or even by astuteness; just as Joseph and Daniel, clean of idolatry, administered both rank and power in the ornament and purple of the prefecture of all Egypt and of Babylonia. Let us grant, then, that someone might succeed in holding some office in the mere name of the office, without sacrificing or lending his authority to sacrifices; without contracting for victims, without assigning the care of temples, without managing their revenues, without giving shows at his own or at public expense or presiding over them; without proclaiming or decreeing any solemnity, without even taking an oath; and further, as to what belongs to power, without judging anyone in a matter of life or of honor (you may allow him cases about money), without condemning or forejudging, without binding anyone, imprisoning or torturing anyone; if it is credible that this can be done.

Now we must deal with the mere trappings and apparatus of office. Each person has his proper dress, both for daily use and for honor and rank. So that purple and the gold ornament of the neck were insignia of rank among the Egyptians and Babylonians in the same way as the bordered, striped, or palm-embroidered togas and the golden crowns of the provincial priests are now, but not on the same terms. For they were conferred only as a title of honor on those who had earned the intimacy of kings; hence they were called the kings' “purpled ones,” from the purple, as with us candidates are named from the white toga; but not so that that apparel was also bound up with priesthoods or with any offices of idols. For if it had been so, surely men of such holiness and constancy would at once have refused the defiled garments, and it would have been evident at once that Daniel was not devoted to idols and did not worship Bel or the dragon, which became evident only much later. That simple purple, then, was among the barbarians a mark not yet of rank but of free birth. For just as Joseph, who had been a slave, and Daniel, who had changed his status through captivity, obtained the citizenship of Egypt and Babylon through the dress of barbarian free birth, so among us believers too, if it should be necessary, the bordered toga may be allowed to boys and the stola to girls, as marks of birth, not of power; of family, not of honor; of rank, not of superstition. But the purple and the other insignia of ranks and powers, dedicated from the beginning to the idolatry bound up with those ranks and powers, bear the stain of their profanation, since, moreover, bordered and striped togas and broad stripes are put on the idols themselves, and fasces and rods are carried before them; and rightly. For the demons are the magistrates of this world; they bear the fasces and the purple as the insignia of one college. What will you gain, then, if you use the apparel but do not carry out its functions? No one can appear clean in unclean things. If you put on a tunic defiled in itself, perhaps it may not be defiled by you, but you cannot be clean because of it. And now you who argue from Joseph and Daniel, know that old and new, rude and polished, begun and completed, servile and free things are not always to be compared. For they were slaves even by condition; but you, the slave of no one, in so far as you belong to Christ alone, who has freed you even from the captivity of the world, ought to act after the Lord's pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, with no certain home: for “the Son of Man,” he says, “has nowhere to lay his head”; plain in dress, for otherwise he would not have said, “See, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses”; finally, without glory in face and appearance, as Isaiah too had foretold. If he exercised no right of power even over his own, for whom he performed a menial service; if, finally, conscious of his kingdom, he fled from being made king, he gave the fullest pattern to his own by directing them away from every eminence and trapping, both of rank and of power. For who would have used them more than the Son of God? What fasces, and how many, would have escorted him; what purple would have bloomed on his shoulders; what gold would have shone on his head, had he not judged the glory of the world alien both to himself and to his own? So what he did not want, he rejected; what he rejected, he condemned; what he condemned, he counted as the pomp of the devil. For he would not have condemned it, had it been his own; and things that are not God's can belong to no one but the devil. If you have renounced the devil's pomp, know that whatever of it you touch is idolatry. Let this at least remind you that all the powers and ranks of this world are not only alien but hostile to God: that through them punishments have been decreed against the servants of God, and through them too the penalties prepared for the impious go unheeded. “But both my birth and my wealth are an obstacle to me against idolatry.” Remedies for avoiding it cannot be lacking; since, even if they were, there remains that one remedy by which you will be made a happier magistrate, not on earth but in heaven.

In the preceding chapter the question of military service too might seem to have been settled, since it lies between rank and power. But the present question is whether a believer may turn to military service, and whether soldiers may be admitted to the faith, even the rank and file or any lower grade, who are under no necessity of sacrifices or capital judgments. There is no agreement between the divine oath and the human, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness; one soul cannot be owed to two, to God and to Caesar. “And Moses carried a rod, and Aaron wore a buckle, and John is girded with a leather belt, and Joshua son of Nun leads an army, and the people waged war,” if one wants to play with words. But how will he wage war, nay, how will he serve as a soldier even in peace, without the sword, which the Lord has taken away? For although soldiers had come to John and received a rule to observe, and even a centurion had believed, the Lord afterwards, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier. No dress is lawful among us that is assigned to an unlawful act.

But since the life of divine discipline is endangered not only by deeds but also by words (for as it is written, “Behold the man and his deeds,” so too, “By your mouth you will be justified”), we must remember that the inroad of idolatry is to be guarded against in words as well, whether it comes from the fault of habit or of timidity. The law forbids the gods of the nations to be named: not, of course, so that we should not pronounce their names, which daily intercourse forces us to say. For it must very often be said: “You will find him in the temple of Aesculapius,” and “I live in the street of Isis,” and “He has been made priest of Jupiter,” and many other things of this kind, since names of this kind are also given to men. For I do not honor Saturn if I call him by his name; I no more honor him than I honor Marcus if I call him Marcus. But it says: “Do not mention the name of other gods, nor let it be heard from your mouth.” What it commands is that we should not call them gods. For in the first part of the law too it says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” that is, for an idol. So whoever has honored an idol with the name of God has fallen into idolatry. And if one must speak of gods, something must be added to make it clear that I do not call them gods. For Scripture too names gods, but adds “their” or “of the nations”; as David, when he had named gods, where he says, “But the gods of the nations are demons.” But this I have set out rather as groundwork for what follows. Moreover, it is a fault of habit to say “Mehercule” or “Medius Fidius,” with the added ignorance of some who do not know that it is an oath by Hercules. But what will swearing by those whom you have forsworn be, if not a betrayal of the faith together with idolatry? For who does not honor those by whom he swears?

It is a matter of timidity, however, when another binds you by his gods with an oath or some other attestation, and you keep quiet so as not to be recognized. For by keeping quiet you equally confirm their majesty, on whose account you will seem to have been bound. What difference does it make whether you confirm the gods of the nations by calling them gods or by hearing them so called? Whether you swear by idols, or acquiesce when adjured by another? Why do we not recognize the cunning of Satan, who, what he cannot accomplish through our own mouth, contrives to accomplish through the mouth of his servants, bringing idolatry into us through our ears? Certainly, whoever the person is, he binds you in either a friendly or a hostile encounter. If hostile, you are already called to battle and know that you must fight; if friendly, how much more safely will you transfer your pledge to the Lord, so as to dissolve the obligation laid on you by the one through whom the evil one was trying to bind you to the honor of idols, that is, to idolatry. All passive acceptance of this kind is idolatry. You honor those whose invocation you have obeyed. I know of a man, may the Lord forgive him, who, when someone said to him in public during a quarrel, “May Jupiter be angry with you,” answered, “No, with you.” What else would a heathen have done, who believed Jupiter a god? Even if he had not thrown back the curse by the same god, or by any like Jupiter, he had confirmed Jupiter as a god, by showing, in cursing back, that he took it ill to be cursed by him. For why be indignant at being cursed by one whom you know to be nothing? For if you rage, you confirm that he exists, and your fear will be a profession of idolatry; how much more, when you curse back by him, do you do honor to Jupiter just as the one who provoked you did? But a believer ought to laugh at such things, not rage; nay, according to the precept, he ought not even to curse back by God, but plainly to bless by God, so that he may destroy idols, proclaim God, and fulfill discipline.

Likewise one initiated into Christ will not endure being blessed by the gods of the nations without always rejecting the unclean blessing and cleansing it by turning it toward God. To be blessed by the gods of the nations is to be cursed by God. If I give alms to someone, or confer some benefit, and he prays that his gods or the genius of the colony may be propitious to me, then my offering or deed will become an honor to the idols through which he repays the favor with a blessing. But why should he not know that I did it for God's sake, so that God rather may be glorified and demons not be honored in what I did for God? If God sees that I did it for his sake, he equally sees that I did not want to show that I did it for his sake; and in a way I have made his precept an offering to idols. Many say that no one ought to publish himself; but I think, nor to deny himself either. For whoever disguises himself in any matter and is taken for a heathen denies; and surely every denial is idolatry, just as all idolatry is denial, whether in deeds or in words.

But there is a certain kind of this fault, in deed and in word at once, double-edged and harmful on both sides, though it flatters you as if it were free of both, since the deed does not seem to be a deed, because the word is not held to have been spoken. Those who borrow money from heathens on pledges give sworn guarantees in writing and so deny themselves; no doubt they think the only occasion for denial is the time of persecution, the place of the tribunal, and the person of the governor. Christ prescribes that there should be no swearing. “I wrote,” he says, “but I said nothing; it is the tongue, not the letter, that kills.” Here I call nature and conscience to witness: nature, because the hand can write nothing that the soul has not dictated, even if the tongue, in dictating, is still, motionless and quiet; though the soul dictates to the tongue itself, either what it conceived itself or what was handed to it by another. Now, lest it be said, “Another dictated it,” here I appeal to conscience, whether the soul does not take up what another dictated and pass it on to the hand, whether the tongue goes along or stays at rest. And it is well that the Lord said that sin is committed in the mind and conscience. “If,” he says, “lust or malice has entered a man's heart, you are held guilty as for the deed.” So you have given a guarantee which plainly entered your heart, and which you can claim neither not to have known nor not to have willed. For when you gave it, you knew; and when you knew, you certainly willed; and so it is in deed as much as in thought. Nor can you exclude the greater crime by pleading a lighter one, saying that a falsehood is committed, to be sure, by guaranteeing what you do not do. “Yet I did not deny, because I did not swear.” On the contrary, even if you had done nothing of the kind, you would still be said to have sworn, if you consented. A silent voice in the pen, a mute sound in the letters, is of no avail. Yet Zechariah, punished with a temporary loss of voice, when he conversed with his mind, passed by his useless tongue, dictated with his hands from his heart, and pronounced his son's name without his mouth: he speaks with the pen; his hand is heard in the wax more clearly than any sound; the letter is more vocal than any mouth. Ask whether he spoke who is found to have spoken. Let us pray the Lord that no necessity of such a contract may beset us, and, if it should happen, that he may give the brethren the means to help, or give us the constancy to break off every necessity, lest those denying letters, deputies of our mouth, be brought out against us on the day of judgment, sealed with the seals, not of witnesses now, but of angels.

Among these rocks and bays, among these shallows and straits of idolatry, faith sails with the Spirit of God filling her sails, safe if cautious, secure if watchful. But for those thrown overboard there is a deep that cannot be swum out of; for those driven aground, a shipwreck from which there is no escape; for those swallowed up, a drowning in idolatry where no breath can be drawn. Whatever waves of it choke, every whirlpool of it sucks down to the underworld. Let no one say, “Who will guard himself so safely? We shall have to go out of the world.” As if it were not as well worth going out of it as standing in the world as an idolater! Nothing can be easier than caution against idolatry, if the fear of it comes first. Any necessity whatever is less than so great a danger. For this reason, when the apostles were then taking counsel, the Holy Spirit loosened the bond and the yoke for us, so that we might be free to avoid idolatry. This will be our law, all the more fully to be kept because it is so unencumbered, the proper law of Christians, by which we are recognized and tested by the heathen. It must be set before those approaching the faith and impressed on those entering the faith, so that those approaching may deliberate, those observing it may persevere, and those not observing it may renounce their claim to be Christians. For we shall see whether, according to the type of the ark, the raven, the kite, the wolf, the dog, and the serpent will be in the church. Certainly no idolater is found in the type of the ark. No animal was made a figure of the idolater. What was not in the ark, let it not be in the church.